CategoryGeorge Wilson

Remembering Pwllheli

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When Cymri say“Pwllheli”I hear againthe pebbly ripple and lapblessing the shore.No human voice, no engine roaronly the thin cries of arctic ternganneting the sea. Across Tremadoc BaySnowdonia’s curtain of cloudblacked out war.The still aircalm as the prayersof a thousand Celtic saintscleansed my headof death, of furnace fires,so many missing friends.The world was still at war butPwllheliwas...

Cowslips At Verdun

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At last they fade from sight, those fieldsof white crosses, rigid, regimented,on parade. But now the Sacred Waycuts through woodland, dense as battle-smoke,concealing still the threat of instant death.Here the war continues, birch and alderinter-strangle with their tangled limbs;some in shell holes stand like moated fortsflooded nearly ninety years ago.Some defend a blast-heaped mound of...

Jeunes Filles en Noir (Renoir)

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Two women, both in black, the widow’s veilis flung across one shoulder, cast aside.A child’s face where sorrow can’t prevail,those sloe-dark eyes more suited to a bride. The funeral past, she sheds no mourning tearas she surveys the seething cafe crowd.What does her confidante say in her ear?What secret that she dare not say aloud? A glorious auburn head displays behind;a sunset...

On Reading a Shakespearean Sonnet

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He helps me keep alive those active cellsthat sometimes light the spark of thought anew,hoping that the cave where reason dwellsmight warm with feeling as it used to do. When thought and feeling fuse, just now and thenand blood rejuvenates the numbing brainthe ageing world regains its glory whenlight and laughter match the constant rain. That surge of mystery, that day in nightencapsulates an...